MR v. State (In re Interest of CDR)

• Decision Date: 29 May 2015
• Docket Number: No. S–14–0240.,S–14–0240.
• Citation: 2015 WY 79,351 P.3d 264
• Parties: In the Interest of CDR, Minor. MR, Appellant (Respondent), v. The State of Wyoming, Appellee (Petitioner).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

351 P.3d 264

2015 WY 79

In the Interest of CDR, Minor.

MR, Appellant (Respondent)

v.The State of Wyoming, Appellee (Petitioner).

No. S–14–0240.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

May 29, 2015.

Representing Appellant: Matthew D. Winslow of Keegan & Winslow, P.C., Cody, Wyoming.

Representing Appellee: Peter K. Michael, Wyoming Attorney General; Robin Sessions Cooley, Deputy Attorney General; Jill E. Kucera, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Shawnna M. Herron, Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Ms. Herron.

Representing Guardian ad Litem: Dan S. Wilde, Deputy State Public Defender, and Aaron S. Hockman, Chief Trial and Appellant Counsel, Wyoming Guardian ad Litem Program. Argument by Mr. Hockman.

Before BURKE, C.J., and HILL, KITE, DAVIS, and FOX, JJ.

Opinion

DAVIS, Justice.

[¶ 1] The juvenile court in Park County revoked a consent decree in an educational neglect case¹ due to an alleged violation of the terms and conditions of that decree by the mother of the juvenile CDR. The boy's father MR appealed the court's order of revocation. We reverse.

ISSUES

[¶ 2] Father poses two questions that we rephrase and renumber as follows:

1. Did the juvenile court lose jurisdiction over the neglect case after finding that the “educational concerns regarding the minor do appear to have been addressed”?

2. Did the court err in finding that Mother violated the terms of the consent decree by drinking alcohol?

FACTS

[¶ 3] The child in this case was twelve years old and in sixth grade at the Cody Middle School when the neglect case was filed. By mid-March of the 2013 spring semester, he had accumulated twenty unexcused full-day absences, and he was failing seven out of eight classes. The school's assistant principal reported those circumstances to the Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS), which in turn conveyed them to the county attorney. On May 24, 2013, the county attorney filed a juvenile neglect petition alleging that Father and Mother had “failed or refused to provide adequate education necessary for the child's well being.”²

[¶ 4] The juvenile court appointed a guardian ad litem to represent the child that same day. Following an initial appearance on June 10, it appointed separate attorneys to represent Mother and Father and selected a multidisciplinary team (MDT). On July 11, the parties³ filed an “Agreement in Support of Consent Decree.” A consent decree adopting and incorporating that agreement was also entered that day.

[¶ 5] The consent decree was to be effective for one year, during which the child was to remain in his parents' custody, and the child and parents were to fulfill a number of behavioral and counseling conditions. If either Father or Mother failed to adhere to those conditions, the decree could be declared void and the neglect proceedings could be reinstated as to both of them.⁴ For purposes of this appeal, the most significant of those conditions was that Father and Mother obtain an alcohol/substance abuse evaluation and “follow the regimen of treatment recommended.”

[¶ 6] A clinician at West Park Behavioral Health evaluated Mother on November 7, 2013. The portion of the evaluation report titled “Recommendation for Treatment” contained the following two paragraphs:

It is recommended that [Mother] engage in a level III inpatient chemical dependency treatment program.

It is furthermore recommended that she abstain from alcohol and all other mood altering substances for the remainder of her life.

However, at the November 14 MDT meeting, the DFS representative described Mother's evaluation as recommending only inpatient treatment.

[¶ 7] Eventually, due to a driving under the influence charge⁵ and delays in reviewing and selecting a program from potential treatment program options, Mother had to obtain an updated evaluation and treatment recommendation. That was provided by Julie Laib of Mental Health and Addiction Services on February 11, 2014. Ms. Laib found that Mother possessed limited skills for coping with her family and mental health issues, and that she posed a high risk of relapsing into insobriety. She therefore recommended a residential substance abuse treatment program focusing both on Mother's alcohol abuse and mental health problems, and that she continue family counseling to address marital conflict. Ms. Laib expressed no expectation that Mother would thereafter be free from relapse.

[¶ 8] After successfully completing an intensive thirty-day inpatient treatment program at the Cedar Mountain Center on May 2, 2014, Mother started outpatient treatment with Ms. Laib. She began with three hours per week of individual and group therapy on June 2, with the understanding that a higher level of outpatient care might become necessary if she failed to remain sober.

[¶ 9] On June 4, 2014, Father moved to dismiss the neglect case, asserting that “the purposes of the proceedings have been substantially met, the subject minor has successfully completed the school year, and there are no remaining matters to address in these proceedings that cannot be fully accomplished in other proceedings already in existence.” Indeed, during the 2013 to 2014 school year, CDR's attendance and grades steadily and substantially improved to the point that he earned two “A”s, three “B”s, and two “C”s in seven graded classes.

[¶ 10] However, on June 16 and 18, 2014, the State filed motions to revoke the consent decree due to Mother's consumption of alcohol on May 28 and June 16,⁶ respectively. In both instances the State contended those actions violated the requirement of the consent decree that Mother follow the treatment regimen recommended in her alcohol/substance abuse evaluation.⁷ Father responded to that contention by noting that the decree did not prohibit either parent from consuming alcohol, and that Mother's current outpatient treatment program was designed to deal with the high likelihood that she would relapse, and accordingly included plans for that contingency.⁸

[¶ 11] At a hearing held on July 15, 2014, Mother expanded on those points by drawing the court's attention to the actual language used in the consent decree agreement. She noted that although the agreement did require her and Father to obtain a drug and alcohol evaluation and follow the treatment regimen recommended in the evaluation, contrary to the State's claim that she was to abstain from alcohol for life, it required nothing more than that she attend alcohol treatment and engage in rehabilitation. Mother characterized the abstention language used in her first evaluation as establishing a goal of treatment, rather than a part of a treatment regimen. She further noted that Ms. Laib's later evaluation contained no such language, and she urged the court to evaluate her actions in relation to the Laib evaluation because she was admitted to the Cedar Mountain inpatient treatment program on that basis.

[¶ 12] On July 16, 2014, the juvenile court sent a short opinion letter to the parties, informing them that it had decided to revoke the consent decree and instructing the county attorney to prepare an order to that effect. The court expressed the reason for its decision by stating:

The educational concerns regarding the minor do appear to have been addressed. No party disputes that. The issue for this court is whether [Mother] has violated the Consent Decree. Clearly she has. This Court will decline to review definitions, the theory of treatment, or other ways to interpret the agreement. [Mother] was not to drink and everyone in the room knew that. She went into residential treatment because of her drinking, and she has consumed twice since being released from treatment.

(Emphasis added.) Two days later and a month before the court issued its order, Father filed a motion seeking clarification of the decision letter.

[¶ 13] Father asked the court to specify what led it to conclude that “everyone in the room knew that” Mother had been prohibited from drinking, given that no such prohibition was stated in the consent decree agreement or otherwise stated by the court, either orally or in writing. He further asked the court to explain its definition of the term “treatment regimen” and how Mother's relapse could be deemed a failure to abide by any such regimen imposed in this case. In short, Father asked the court to clarify what led it to interpret the agreement as it did.

[¶ 14] On August 5, 2014, the court responded by letter to Father's motion. The court attached to the letter an excerpt from a transcript of a hearing held on January 14, 2014, which reflected its concerns over Mother's addiction.⁹ It likewise referred to a November 14, 2013 MDT report which noted Father's frustration over her drinking. The three-page excerpt from the hearing mentions Mother twice. The court first said, “We both have watched your wife being destroyed by alcohol.” It later said, “I have watched him come in here with clear eyes when his wife did not have them.”

[¶ 15] Although the MDT report does indeed reflect Father's frustration, it also contains a brief description of Mother and Father's just-completed initial substance abuse evaluations and the recommended treatment regimen each was to follow. Their DFS caseworker indicated that Father was to “abstain from the use of substances, provide UAs, participate in family counseling, participate in spouse chemical dependency treatment, participate in [CDR's] counseling, and attend outpatient family therapy.”¹⁰ She described Mother's recommended treatment regimen as “Inpatient treatment.”

[¶ 16] The juvenile court entered its order on the State's and Father's motions on August 18, 2014. It incorporated its earlier decision letter by reference, revoked the consent decree, and reinstated the neglect proceedings. That same day, the court also entered an order which accepted and entered Mother and Father's earlier admissions¹¹ to the allegations of educational neglect, noted that the court would schedule a disposition hearing, and ordered the preparation of an...